To finish

Butter is made when lactic-acid producing bacteria are added to cream and churned to make an…

finely chopped chives

Method

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan. When it foams, add the potatoes, onion and leeks and toss them in the butter until they are well coated. Season well with salt and freshly ground pepper and toss again. Put a disc of greaseproof paper (called a cartouche by chefs) on top of the vegetables to keep in the steam), then cover the pan with its lid. Cook over a gentle heat for 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft but not coloured.

Uncover the pan and discard the paper. Pour in 850ml/11⁄2 pints of the stock, bring to the boil and simmer until the vegetables are just cooked – about 5 minutes. Do not overcook or the soup will lose its fresh flavour.

Purée in a blender until silky smooth, in batches if necessary, then taste and adjust the seasoning. Return the soup to a clean pan and stir in three quarters of the cream and all of the milk.

To finish the soup, finely shred the white leek and gently cook it in the hot butter for a few minutes until it is softened but not coloured. Reheat the soup to a gentle simmer (add some extra stock at this point if the soup is too thick for your liking), then pour into warmed bowls. Drizzle the remaining cream over each serving, top with a little pile of buttered leeks and a scattering of chives and black pepper and serve at once.

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Comments, questions and tips

Comments (107)

reevey28th Nov, 2016

3.75

Nice soup but we felt it needed some chunks of the potato & leeks left in it rather than being all smooth. Very warming and filling, ideal winter's day soup, we scored it 7.5/10. Very easy to make too!

Quick, easy and blooming gorgeous! I'm on a diet so substituted fat free Fromage Blanc for the cream and used skimmed milk, and ate with a couple of Ryvitas! Managed to get the seasoning right first go :D

As I felt cold today for the first time I can recall in many months, I decided to make a comforting potato and leek soup. I am so glad that this recipe was the one that I chose!As my partner is lactose intolerant, I used dairy-free alternatives for the milk, cream (Oatly brand, I find the Alpro Soy one too sweet for most savoury recipes) and butter.This didn't have any impact on the soup at all - beautiful flavours and very easy to make. As some other comments have mentioned, I found that it required a little more seasoning than I would normally use so do taste test it as you go along.

I personally find this soup a little bland - didn't change anything from the recipe. Possibly would have liked it better if I had kept it a bit more chunky and maybe served with bacon as some have suggested. Ok, but not a rave hit in my house.

We all loved this soup, although I made a couple of changes. I only added 500ml stock and then I removed half the veg, blended the rest and then chucked the veg back in whole. Tried it and it was lovely and then stupidly threw in some cream (about 100ml) but in my opinion is was better before this. Lots and lots of pepper is my top tip :)Note. I would make this for a dinner party as it's easy and delicious, but would probably blend the whole lot to make it less rustic than mine.

This was just the right soup for warming us up. Mine looked less insipid than the picture shows because I wasn't very strict about only using the white parts of the leeks. I used stock cubes but I bet that a good chicken stock would make this a 5 star soup.

Love love love this soup! So easy to make, simple ingredients, very filling, warm and wintery. Added a little too much potato but it was still gorgeous, does need quite a bit of seasoning. Tastes divine topped with crunchy croutons!

I made this soup as a slimline option by putting all the ingredients into my soup maker without frying them first and it was delicious. I did add cream to serve with little bits of crispy bacon on top. Just the thing for an Autumn lunch.

This is such a delicious & comforting soup, I followed the instructions and flavour was really nice. I didn't add the milk but added the cream as I had it to hand but it would still be delicious without it.

This is the best soup ever - everyone who tries it raves about it. I think it is important to not overcook it, but follow the steps/timings as stated in the recipe, My husband says he would marry me on the strength of this soup alone! Need I say more

Hi there, sorry to hear you're not having success with this recipe. You're absolutely right you do need to test it and cook for longer if they're still crunchy. If you insert a knife or a fork into the vegetables after cooking it should go in fairly easily without too much resistance but equally they shouldn't turn to mush. In lots of our recipes we do give a time but because hobs, pans and even the room temperature you're cooking in can vary so much we add a description of how it should end up as well. If after 10 mins they're still very hard, pop the cartouche back and cook for 2-3 mins more then test again. Repeat until you're happy with the result. Hope this helps and that you'll be tempted to give it another go.

Tips (1)

drthane1002nd Oct, 2013

Love this recipe. I also added few cloves of garlic, a bay leaf and stick of cinnamon while sautéing the vegetables. Discarded the bay leaf and cinnamon before puréeing. Before serving added a pinch of nutmeg to the soup. Tasted yummy!

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